How Chutkan proceeds could have far-reaching ramifications on the scope of the case, and the presidential election in November.
Trump is accused of overseeing a sprawling effort to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, including two counts of conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election results, conspiring to defraud the government and conspiring to disenfranchise voters.
But the supreme court decided that criminal accountability for presidents has three categories: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity and unofficial acts that carry no immunity.
In doing so, Trump will try to foreclose witness testimony that could be politically damaging, because it would cause evidence about his efforts to subvert the 2020 election that has polled poorly to be suppressed, and legally damaging because it could cause Chutkan to rule against Trump.
For instance, if prosecutors try to call Pence or his chief of staff, Marc Short, to testify about meetings where Trump discussed stopping the January 6 certification, Trump would try to block that testimony by asserting executive privilege and having Pence assert the speech or debate clause protection.
Trump has already been enormously successful in delaying his criminal cases, principally by convincing the supreme court to take the immunity appeal in the 2020 election subversion case, which was frozen while the court considered the matter.
The delay strategy thus far has been aimed at pushing the cases until after the November election, in the hope that Trump would be re-elected and then appoint as attorney general a loyalist who would drop the charges.
But now, even if Trump loses, his lawyers have coalesced on a legal strategy that could take months to resolve depending on how prosecutors choose to approach evidentiary hearings, adding to additional months of anticipated appeals over what Chutkan determines are official acts.
